Standing on the pulpit of Ahavat Achim in Atlanta, I join my friend, Craig Taubman, a famous Jewish folk-rock composer and performer, in a concert of Jewish music: a mixed bag of selections that reflects a strange and twisted course of history.
Thirty years ago I was first invited by the late Cantor Isaac Goodfriend to sing in a cantorial concert with some of the greats of the day. Though new to the concert world, I had already made a reputation as a young Turk of the cantorial world. Not much after that, a Florida newspaper called me the "Jewish Pavarotti" and the moniker stuck. Today I have sung all over the world but only recently have stopped quoting that rather presumptuous nickname. At that time it would never have crossed my mind to sing with a band. My career would, of course, follow the footsteps of my teachers, Moshe Ganchoff and David Kusevitsky!
But, the world turns and the dinosaur status I had accepted from the earliest days of my career became even clearer to me about fifteen years ago. All around the Jewish world, "renewal" and "new age" was the call to action. A classical cantor? PASSE! Conservative synagogues were (and are) shrinking. Rabbis, beginning to feel the pinch of not quite enough good positions for all their graduates began marginalizing the role of the Cantor. Cantors, who used to have numerous offers began finding it difficult to find even a single place that would hire them. Those who have positions face demands: retool the music of their pulpits to reflect or even copy that of B'nai Jeshurun in New York, or Sinai Temple's "Friday Night Live" (created by none other than Craig Taubman). I was caught off guard.
It took more than a few friendly hints by my rabbinical colleagues and friends to make me look and see what had been developing while I fought to preserve the traditional modes and styles of a magnificent cantorial heritage, albeit one that had developed in Eastern Europe and the U.S. during the past hundred or so years. I joined hands with Craig as we wrote tunes together, had long discussions about the state of Jewish liturgical music and began doing services and concerts together. I clearly saw that a symbiosis can be reached that may one day be called, "American Nusach."
We are perennially eager to embrace fads in the name of spirituality. We go from song to song, style to style: Gospel Jewish music? YES! Arena rock show services? YES! Ultra-staged and choreographed spirituality? YES! Let's all close our eyes and feel the spirit rise within us as we adapt Sephardic tunes, Israeli sounding songs and much music that sounds disturbingly like what one hears on Christian Radio and TV!
Bitter? No, I do not believe that Hazzanut (traditional cantorial chant) is the answer to the Conservative congregation of the 21st century. The sounds of Hazzanut originated in Middle Eastern maqqamot (modes) in use, most probably, since the time of Solomon's Temple (not sure-- wasn't there) through an exile that has influenced the millenia until you, (I am a Sephardi who learned the Ashkenaz tradition as a student) sojourned in Poland and her neighbors for approximately 1,000 years. Jewish music both influenced and was influenced by the endemic folk and classical song of our host cultures (as music has been forever) until the music of our Ashkenazic liturgical style became an amalgam of well known phrases and tunes in given modes that appeals to all those born under its influence.
We are no longer there! The Holocaust destroyed a way of life that continues only in the Orthodox community. Israel, the true melting pot of Jewish music, still has champions for traditional Ashkenazic authenticity, again, mostly in the Orthodox world. What about the liberal (I speak of the Conservative movement-- Reform is for others to consider) synagogue of the 21st century United States? It is clear that change is necessary. Can we retain the sounds of "nusach" (traditional liturgical modes) while leaning heavily on tunes and styles accessible to a generation that has, for the most part, forgotten how to pray? Must every cataclysmic wave of modernity wipe the slate clean of what has come before it?
No, we do not know how the Levites chanted in the Holy Temple of Jerusalem thousands of years ago. The loss of that tradition must have come as a very heavy blow to the generations that followed its destruction. Yet, we survived. In contrast, today we have the mechanism of preservation in recordings.
We have thousands of published volumes and recordings of magnificent Jewish liturgical music. Must "New Age" be an adversary of tradition? I think not. Those of us in the Cantors Assembly, each day, strive to teach and nurture learning. We have all come to see the necessity for finding that blend of tradition and modernity that will allow our congregants to feel at home in worship, once more.
We are only at the beginning of the tsunami that will reshape the Conservative synagogue of the future. If a future is to be had, rabbis and cantors will have to be trained for the congregation of the next 50 years.
May all rabbis and cantors be competent, energetic and risk taking! Together, not in insecurity, but with focus and faith, they will have to continue to find ways to mold and sustain the Jewish family and community while embracing the reality that they need each other to succeed.
